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Arielle Donovan is a fifteen year old girl who has just lost something very important to her, her best friend. On a dark summer night, Jenna leaves Arielle’s home without her insisting she’ll be right back, but never returns. Arielle suffers through a summer alone, desperate to find out what happened to her friend, but lacking the energy that the experience of loss has drained from her. On the afternoon of her fifteenth birthday however, Arielle has a dream. She sights Jenna outside her kitchen window, runs outside only to bolt after her as Jenna sprints away. Losing control of her body and breath, Arielle’s world becomes hazy as she sees her friend run into the burning structure of the old Dexter orphanage, and she is powerless to do anything after being confined behind the Iron Gate that protects the place.…
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While the mysteries kept my attention, my favorite part of this novel was the characters. Todd is a delightful young boy who, while not overly troublesome, gets in his fair share of scrapes. His sisters Libby and Lilly Jean do not start off with much of a role, but they become more important as the novel continues. I found myself laughing with the family, crying with the family, and even getting upset for the family. To me, one of the gifts in writing is to be able to make your audience feel what the characters themselves feel. Ms. Ulmer makes this novel enjoyable by making her characters…
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This book has a very good theme but was not written to entertain the mind of a high school teen. The theme of friendship and the theme of telling the truth instead of hiding from it can help you overcome problems with your friend helped me out in life personally. I saw how what someone can see as white lie can produce even worse problems than the problems that would occur for telling the truth. I have been in situations where I could easily get out of a dilemma by lying but it was exceptionally wrong to do so. I thought this story was boring because besides Finny’s death, Finny falling out of the tree, and the “trials” on Gene there wasn’t much action. The writing of Knowles taught me to always do what is right no matter the consequence for it, because there may be greater consequences for not telling the truth.…
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Overall, I would recommend this book sophisticated young readers who like thrilling adventures and electrifying love stories.…
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The beginning of the book takes place in a place called the Bottom, and the first person they talk about is Shadrack. He has returned from WWI a veteran, and when he finally gets out of the hospital after being injured, he starts National Suicide Day as a way to deal with death. Then we meet Helene Sabat, her grandmother Cecile, and her daughter Nel. Helene is very strict. Nel becomes friends with the main character Sula, which marks the start of a lifelong friendship. Helene, however, doesn 't approve of Sula 's mother, Hannah. Sula 's family is very different from Nel 's. Sula 's house is always crazy. Hannah has a habit of sleeping with married men, she thinks of sex as fun and not a big deal. Sula begins the same behavior shortly after. We get to know more about the friendship between Sula and Nel, and a lot happens to them over the years. Sula learns that her mom doesn 't really like her, she and Nel are involved in an accident that results in a boy named chicken little drowning. Sula 's mom Hannah dies in a fire; Nel gets married to a man named Jude; and Sula leaves town for ten years, returns, and has an affair with Jude. A few years later, Sula gets involved with a man named Ajax, but when he senses that she 's getting too possessive, he leaves her. Sula falls ill shortly after that and eventually dies.The book goes ahead about 25 years. Nel visits Sula 's grandmother Eva in the senior home. Eva accuses Nel of standing by and letting Chicken Little drown all those years ago. We find out that it 's true: Nel watched him drown and enjoyed it. As she 's leaving, she passes Shadrack on the street, who is also lost in sad thoughts. Suddenly, Nel calls out for Sula and finally forgives her for cheating with Jude. The book ends with Nel grieving for the loss of Sula.…
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The novel Looking for Alibrandi effectively explores the theme of change, it is seen through the novel that Josephine Alibrandi, the main character and narrator, significantly changes as an individual, friend and family member as her perspective on life changes throughout the year. First person narration gives the responders an insight into Josie’s mind and reveals how her feelings change towards Jacob Coote and the changes that occur in her life. As she is “beginning to realize that things don’t turn out the way you want them to” the readers feel empathy and suspense as she narrates her inspirational story. Another technique Marchetta uses to create suspense and also add tension to the storyline is by adding ellipsis which leads up to what Josie reveals to the readers. As Josephine is almost peer pressured into becoming intimate with her short term boyfriend, she stops and says “until … maybe until I’m engaged”. The use of ellipsis illustrates the tension between Jacob and Josie, but reveals that Josie does not change even though Jacob is pressuring her, this adds to the character of Josie and proves to the audience that she is strong and will stand up for herself. Therefore Marchetta portrays that change may be hard to avoid, although the right change is needed to become the person we desire to be. Josephine is strong enough to…
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Andy chased both of them to the hospital trying to kill them both. In danger Rebecca appeared asking her dad why he did it. He panics and tries to call out for her but she doesn’t appear. After she disappeared he grabbed Neil and tried to kill him but Rebecca puts her weight on the floor and they both collapsed into the floor. Bree broke the window jumping down, searching for another window and broke it again to search for her brother inside the hospital. She finally finds him on the table and quickly grabs him to leave. In the corner of her eye she sees Andy faced down in the water dead. Soon everyone in the town finds out about his death and his horrible doings. There are many things that I like about this book. One would be how it is a horror story with crime mystery in it, which stays in your head. The plot and story was amazing. I recommend this book to people who like horror, mystery books. There wasn’t anything that I disliked about this book. The theme of this book was adventure because they went exploring and finding clues and solving crimes. There wasn’t really anything understanding I took away from this book that taught me a…
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The character Spaz is a teenager that doesn’t knows a lot about himself. All he knows is he has to live by Billy Bizmo’s rules and stay alive. When Spaz was little, he was put in a unit home and then he had a sister name Bean. Spaz loved Bean like she was apart of him. Then he finds out that Bean has this disease called leukemia. She was always sick and even though he was scared and confused he always stays beside her. Spaz was the only one that could give her the medicine she needed by taking her to Eden. He felt like the only person that could save her. Spaz would stay the night with her and help her with whatever she needed. The foster parent didn’t stay at night with Bean Spaz just thought they was too scared or too hurt to even be around…
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This novel has been oversimplified, attempting to make not only the setting but also the characters and plot simpler than what they really are. This novel is a fairly straightforward read for a young adult. The story is narrated in third person, gives the reader details of the entire world where the story takes…
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So I hit her with it.” Carly’s father demands that Josie get a lawyer so she rings her father. “Andretti walked in... he was also glaring at me so sharply that I felt no need for celebration.” Here Josie is fed up with Carly’s racist comments so she hits her. She is sent to the principal’s office to await her punishment. Josie takes the risk of calling her father to get her out of the mess she’s created. This example is important because it helped me understand them both better and like them both a bit more because Michael does come and he is constructive as he resolves the conflict. She “liked the feeling of having her father beside her when she walked out of school”. Josie relies on her father for the first time. This helped me to understand her ‘hang ups’ as most teenage girls have a cool dad to help them out, should they ask. In my opinion this shows that Josie is starting to develop feelings towards Michael as she has depended on him. Also Michael had to leave work to help her. He’s not used to being a dad but came anyway. This shows that he too, is starting to warm to the idea of a new family member. Their relationship takes off from…
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Your story has such a great start, but feels like there is so much more to your story. We know ‘Elizabeth” on the run with her son because of her abusive husband or boyfriend, but what made her go to hiding. Was he after her? Was he trying to get custody of A.J.? or was the father also abusing A.J. I would have love if you had elaborated on the Aunt and why…
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The story started like this, Agnes was looking for Honey she got into trouble. Honey was punished by Emmanuel because she kissed a boy, on her back; Veronica had carved the word “harlot”. Soon, Nana Pete (Agnes and Benny’s grandmother) found out about the regulation room where people were being punished at. Nana Pete decides to leave after she found out, when Benny had his finger slammed in the door. Someone had called the police, but because Emmanuel knew he was going to get into trouble if the police come, so he decides to it on himself clumsily. Nana Pete takes him to the hospital where they had to undo everything that Emmanuel had done. Right after Benny had woken up, they escape from Mount blessing where Agnes really doesn’t want to because she wants to become a saint, but Honey dreads to escape that place from the day her was born. Honey had to say goodbye to Winky, the person that Honey owns a utterfly garden with. Honey also left a note about if Agnes ever goes back, Honey made Winky call the cops.…
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Josephine Alibrandi’s relationship with her family has its highs and lows. Josie’s family impacts her as an individual in different ways and makes Josie feel suffocated by her family and religion. Josie and Jacob are in a strong relationship and Josie’s family culture as a 'wog' controls her love life and friendship life, and restricts her from going to places. “I'll run one day. Run for my life. To be free and think for myself...I'll run to be emancipated.” .The relationship between Josie and John changes in various ways at different stages. Through this relationship Josie discovers more about what is important in life and learns to accept herself for who she is. As years pass, she and Nonna develop a connection the leads to Nonna Katia revealing a big family secret that has a huge impact on the Alibrandi family’s name.…
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The emotive word ‘bastard’ got directed towards Josie many times which made her feel alone yet through pathos moments did she realize that being illegitimate was unimportant. “I always hated being illegitimate. I always did until the other day when I realized it was nothing.” Josie yearned to be society’s definition of ‘cool’ and her clouded judgment directed her beliefs of what she wanted into an entirely different direction. “Please God let me be accepted by someone other than the underdog”. She deemed that the hierarchy of events in her life to be ruled by acceptance from others and it became a motif that repeated itself until one day when she understood. Only when she reached her identity did the trivial and material parts of her life vanish and the real ones cemented.…
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Two specific memories after Hannah passed away had a strong impact on me as I read. The first was when Maria received the woven rug from a stranger saying the rug was a gift from Hannah. The story of Hannah continuously ran through the woman’s mind, seeming as though it was a sign from God and message from Hannah to her family saying she was with them. I was confused at first since it seemed quite strange that this message was received via a random stranger to Maria, but as she described the details woven into the rug, my confusion turned to awe. The angel woven into the rug resembled specific details of Hannah and included the pink rose resembling the middle name Hannah chose for her new baby sister at the time. The second memory was when Madelaine exclaimed she played with Hannah in heaven before she was born as they passed the pink house Hannah once claimed she would own one day. This was very heartwarming and awe inspiring as well since they had never discussed Hannah liking this house before. It sparked my fascination in how a child’s mind operates and revealed the presence of God working in the mind of a child.…
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